Le Douanier’s Parisian jungle, 3
Last of three parts, continued from here.
During his last years Rousseau stayed close to the exotic landscapes that made his reputation, all of them bursting with turgid plants and fine detail looming from the shadows.
In “The Merry Jesters”, above, from about 1906 (click on the detail to see the whole painting), the simians play with back-scratchers and a milk bottle. In another work from 1910, the denizens of “Tropical Forest with Monkeys” are fishing. Such anthropomorphism may have been a conscious attempt to remind man that his innocence was being robbed by modernisation.
In “Virgin Forest”, or “Negro Attacked by a Jaguar” (also clickable), the action at the centre of the painting and almost engulfed in the surrounding jungle. Despite the Douanier’s painting style being unrealistic, there is a different kind of realism at work here that’s disturbingly compelling. See the rest.
